Sleepless in Las Vegas
by KleeNut214
Summary: It was easy, and that was perplexing. WIP
1. Chapter 1

_**Author****'**__**s Note:** Darling Klee and I are going to alternate chapters on this one. We don't own CSI, shocking as that may be._

* * *

Grissom couldn't sleep. 

Exhaustion flooded his bones, made his steps heavy and staggered. His mind swam with strange voices and images, and he found himself entering rooms with no recollection of why he'd come in the first place.

Every morning, he'd fall into bed after work, closing his eyes and waiting for the sweet blanket of sleep to overtake him. And every evening, his alarm clock would sound before he'd slept at all.

Nick was already out of the hospital. Nick was healing out on a ranch in Texas, and still, Grissom didn't sleep. For five straight days.

"You look beat," Catherine said as they gathered together for assignments.

"Yeah," was all he could manage.

Greg and Warrick walked in the door, laughing about some episode of The Office, and Grissom wondered what was wrong with him. Everyone else cared for Nick just as much as he did, but they'd all put it behind them somehow.

Truth be told, he couldn't even say for certain that it was Nick's abduction that had stolen his sleep. But the timing couldn't have been a coincidence; they'd found Nick buried underground, and ever since, he hadn't slept.

"Okay, we need to get going with assignments," he said finally. "Anyone know where Sara is?"

"She's over in the computer lab, going through Missing Persons reports," Greg supplied as he took a bottle of water out of the refrigerator. "Said she wanted to get a head start on that John Doe from yesterday."

Grissom blinked. He couldn't even remember yesterday's cases. "Okay, well, uh... We've got two murders and a robbery. Duke it out." He dropped the assignment slips on the table and wandered out of the room.

For the first two days, he'd used coffee to make it through shift. But eventually the caffeine just made his hands shake, and he gave it up. His doctor had written him a prescription for Ambien; the drug weighed down his body and slowed his mind, but that was it.

He found Sara right where Greg said she'd be. She was scrolling down a list of Missing Persons, and he wondered how many times he'd walked in on this scene. Had to be hundreds.

"Hey, how're we doing on the..." his voice trailed off as she turned towards him.

She looked like hell. A thick layer of concealer didn't hide the dark circles under her eyes, and her lids were half-closed. "Huh?"

Grissom swallowed, feeling the familiar twinge of concern. "Are you okay?"

"Looking for the John Doe," she replied, her voice low and slow.

"Sara, when was the last time you slept?"

"What?"

"When was..." he shook his head. "Never mind. When you're done there, come see me."

"M'kay." She turned dull eyes back to the screen as he ambled back out into the hall.

Oddly enough, his brain was beginning to sharpen. Sara wasn't sleeping either, and that was a problem that needed solving. He entered his office and shut the door, sitting down at his desk. A quick flip through the rolodex found the number he sought.

Within twenty minutes, the plan was set in motion.

He was elbow-deep in paperwork by the time she showed up at his doorway, but he set his pen down immediately. "Let's take a ride."

"Where?"

"The Natural History Museum. They've got a specimen there that–"

"But what about my case?" she interrupted. "I still don't have an ID on the body, and–"

"I put Greg on it," he said calmly. "You don't have to come along if you don't want to. I just thought it might be a good learning experience for you." He'd pulled out the big guns, said the L word, and her eyes had widened slightly just as he'd expected. "But if you want, I can ask someone else to–"

"No, I want to go," she said quickly. "Just let me grab my purse."

Her purse. That was good; that meant she knew they weren't going to come back to the lab. He threw a few things into a shoulder bag and wandered out to the lobby, his hands in his pockets. Judy smiled at him, and he nodded to her as Sara appeared.

"Let's go."

The drive was quiet. Sara didn't doze off as he'd hoped, but a nice side effect of her presence was that he felt more alert. She tended to do that to his body – make his nerve endings twitch.

"So tell me about this specimen," she said finally.

"Well, the museum recently received a small collection of butterflies from a wealthy man who died," Grissom replied, his head swiveling to the side as he changed lanes. "Their experts are pretty good and were able to identify almost all of the specimens, except one. So they called me."

He didn't add that they'd actually called him two weeks ago.

The museum was dark as they arrived, but Grissom just swiped a pass card through the reader and parked in a side lot. A man was waiting outside for them.

"Dr. Grissom," he said brightly as they approached. "So glad you could come and help us out."

"My pleasure, as always," Grissom replied. "Sara, this is Andrew Falk, one of the zoologists on staff at the museum. Dr. Falk, this is my associate at the crime lab, Sara Sidle."

After shaking hands, they made their way inside the building. The halls were noticeably narrow as they passed several offices and workrooms.

"Right through here," Dr. Falk said, ushering them into a brightly lit room. "The specimen is encased in glass, so if you need to remove it–"

"Shouldn't be an issue," Grissom assured him. "Shall I call you when we're done?"

"Of course."

Sara watched Dr. Falk leave, a puzzled look on her face. "He didn't want to stay?"

"I'm sure he'd want to," Grissom said, pulling a chair up to the table. "But he knows I like to look at specimens alone."

"Oh, then... should I–"

"No, please, have a seat," he said at once with a grin. "I'd appreciate your help on this."

She smiled back at him tiredly. "Right, like I'll know anything that zoologist didn't."

Leaning over, Grissom picked up his shoulder bag, drawing out a large textbook. "He probably doesn't have one of these. It's got photos and drawings of nearly every butterfly in existence." He passed the book to Sara, then peered at the butterfly specimen. "For starters, I can tell you it's from the Lycaenidae family. What else do you notice about it?"

She took a seat next to him and leaned forward obligingly. "Well, it's blue..."

"Meaning it's in the Polyommatinae subfamily." Gesturing toward the book, he raised an eyebrow.

Sara sighed, opening the book and flipping to the Polyommatinae section. "Now what?"

"Now you figure out what type of butterfly it is, while I do some paperwork," he replied, pulling several files out of his bag.

"You can't be serious."

"Oh, I am." Feigning intense concentration, he opened a file and peered at the papers inside. "Unless," he said, not looking up, "you don't think you can do it."

She set her jaw stubbornly and pulled the book toward her, scanning the page and looking up at the butterfly for comparison.

It was hard to hide his smile as he watched her covertly. He'd figured out long ago that the best way to get Sara Sidle to sleep was to give her brain a tough challenge. Once she'd solved it, she'd crash. And once she crashed, she'd sleep for hours.

"Wow," she murmured, drawing a breath. "These are beautiful."

"The blues are," he agreed.

"Look at the Common Blue," she said. "Look at their color. How can they call that common?"

He chuckled. "They're not judging its merit, Sara, just its pervasiveness."

To his delight, she wasn't just glancing at the pictures. On each page, she took the time to read the history and description of each butterfly, even the ones which bore no resemblance to their specimen.

Finally she nodded her head and looked up at him with a satisfied expression. "Found it."

"You're sure?"

"Yup." She handed him the book, pointing to a photograph. "It's a San Francisco native. The Xerces Blue. "

Putting aside his papers, he scooted closer to the specimen. "A Xerces, really?"

"The coloring, the shape of the wings, it's all a match." She leaned back in her chair. "Plus it fits the profile."

"What profile?"

"Well, if our rich dead guy left a small collection of butterflies to a museum, then I figure the specimens are probably pretty rare. The Xerces is extinct, so that fits."

He nodded, studying the butterfly closely. "Good work, Sara. I think you're right."

"You probably knew what it was the second you saw it," she said with a tiny smile. "Why'd you ask me to come along?"

"I wanted you to get familiar with this textbook," he replied. "I get called out on consults a lot, so I figured if you knew how to use the book too, then maybe you could help."

"Oh." She nodded, and he got a whiff of something sweet. Shampoo, maybe, or body lotion. "So now what?"

"Now we make the good doctor's day by telling him he's got a Xerces, and then we get something to eat."

They stopped at a 24-hour diner. Sara looked through the menu contentedly, twisting a lock of hair around her forefinger. He watched her from under his eyelashes, noticing the way the light struck her curls. The way she hummed under her breath, the way her eyes squinted a little to read the small text.

"Griss? You ready to order?"

She was staring at him, and the waitress was staring at him, and Sara still looked the same as she had when he'd met her seven years ago–

"French toast, please," he said finally. "And a glass of milk."

They talked about work, of course, but there was a comfort level that had been missing for a while. She teased him once or twice (twice, he thought) and he gave her a few compliments that made her blush lightly.

It was easy, and that was perplexing.

They lingered over their food, ordering decaf coffee and sipping it slowly. But eventually the waitress and her pointed looks chased them from their seats, and they got back in the car.

He drove her home, and she didn't protest, didn't mention that her car was still in the lab parking lot. He told her he'd pick her up that night for shift as she climbed out of the car sleepily.

When he watched her walk away, he felt as if there were a thousand Xerces butterflies fluttering in his stomach.

And here he'd thought they were extinct.

He drove home, fell into bed, and slept for ten straight hours.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: I'm the slow one and I take full responsibility for my slowness. I love writing with CSINut, however, so I hope she continues to have patience with me. And my slowness. :)

* * *

Sara was wide awake. 

The apartment security door shut solidly behind her and she bounded up two flights of stairs, two steps at a time, fumbling in her bag for her keys, fumbling for the door. She was surprised to find her hands shaking as she finally jammed the right key into the lock.

But not too surprised.

In the semi-darkness of her apartment she hurried to the window, pushed aside the curtain ever so slightly. His car was still there. He was still watching. She grinned. She moved the curtain fully aside to expose her face. She lifted her hand. She waved.

He drove away.

What the _hell_ was that? She shook her head and wondered if she'd ever sleep again.

So, Grissom's plan, his "scheme" to tire her out with a tough "learning experience" hadn't worked after all.

Well, it hadn't made her tired. It had just left her pleased and utterly confused. It had left every nerve in her body twitching. She ran a hand down the side of her face, felt the smile pushing her cheek up into a soft lump.

Recap, she thought. Recap. Hurry, before you forget what happened.

As if.

Grissom, out of the blue, asked her to accompany him on a road trip to identify a butterfly. A butterfly of all things. His field of expertise. Then he took her to breakfast. Then he drove her home. Then he looked like he wanted to kiss her.

What the _hell_ was that?

Shower, she thought. Shower. Then sleep. You need to sleep. You're starting to lose it.

But the shower's warm spray, usually a soothing sensation, only heightened her awareness of the previous few hours' events. Every small detail was somehow becoming more and more clear, more focused. She combed out her hair, watching her face in the steamy bathroom mirror. She wondered what Grissom saw when he looked at her and she wondered if she looked different all of a sudden. Silly, she thought. I look the same as I have for the past seven years. Except now I just look older.

She pulled on a T-shirt and climbed into bed. She lay on her back, her side, pulled her knees up to her chest. She turned onto her stomach, pushed her face into the pillow. She considered grabbing a book, a magazine, the TV Guide, the take-out menu from VeggieBurger Delite, then realized it was futile.

There was no way she was going to fall asleep any time soon.

Every time she closed her eyes she could see him, see Grissom, looking at her like he'd looked at her so many, many times in their relationship. But this time…this time it was different somehow. It was almost as if there had been a film between them, a slightly grimy pane of glass and someone had finally wiped it clean.

He looked at her like he was finally _seeing_ her.

Okay. Enough.

She threw off the blankets and threw herself into cleaning her entire apartment. No more mooning over someone she worked with and something she could barely articulate, could barely even bring herself to contemplate after so long. So, she scrubbed and wiped and scoured and vacuumed. She pulled the seldom-used stove out from the wall and mopped behind it. She cleaned the inside of her almost empty fridge and made a mental note to buy _something_.

She wiped down the shower curtain, and the little white knobs around the base of the toilet. She pulled a long clump of hair out of the drain.

She washed the walls. And the ceiling. And the light switch panels. And the doorknobs.

She sat on the edge of the tub, beads of sweat trickling down the back of her neck. She peeled off the yellow rubber gloves and realized she needed another shower.

This time when she fell into bed at least her body felt tired. Her mind, however, continued to whir and click and calculate and replay until it realized with a start that her body and mind had to be at work in three hours.

She fell asleep.

* * *

She walked out of her apartment and wondered, Where the hell's my car? 

For one panicked moment she was sure it had been stolen.

Shit, shit, shit.

Perfect.

Now what?

She took a deep breath and moved to grab her cell phone when she saw him.

I'm hallucinating, she thought. I'm so damn tired I'm seeing things.

He was parked at the curb, engine off, head bent as if reading something terribly gripping. She squinted at him, then walked over and tapped on the window. He startled and looked up, then smiled. He unlocked the doors, let her in.

"Hey," he said brightly.

"Hey," she said, leaning in. "What…are you doing here?"

"Well, it's kind of hard to drive to work without a vehicle, isn't it?"

Ohhhh. Right.

She smiled, nodded, plopped down beside him. He put his article down ("_Telescopes at the ready for lunar eclipse"_), turned the key. She looked out the window, smiling ever so slightly. Weird, damn life, she thought. Then, Why aren't we moving? She looked at him. He was smiling.

"Seatbelt."

She put it on. He drove away.

* * *

"Did you sleep?" Catherine, looking fresh and freshly made-up, asked her immediately. Sara lowered the coffee cup from her lips just long enough to mutter something that sounded like _Kind of_, before she inhaled another three mouthfuls. 

"Could have fooled me," Catherine said, tapping her pen on her notebook. "You know you have to actually stop working and go _home_, in order to, you know, go to sleep."

Tap, tap, tap.

Tap, tap, tap.

Resisting the overwhelming urge to grab Catherine's pen and perform a transorbital lobotomy with it, Sara drained her cup and shuffled towards the coffee maker, narrowly avoiding Grissom as he sailed into the breakroom, a smile on his well-rested face, a bounce in his step.

He had dropped her off a block from the building. It had taken all her strength to walk it.

"Good morning," he said pointedly, looking directly at Sara.

"Hey," she said. "You look…"

"I slept great," he said.

"Huh," said Sara.

He looked closely at her, frowned. "You look…"

"Yeah. I heard."

He opened his mouth but quickly closed it as Warrick and Nick walked in, followed by Greg and it was business as usual.

Even though nothing was usual, at least for her.

"You look like hell," Nick said, handing her another coffee. She almost stuck out her tongue.

Maybe I dreamed it all, she thought later. That would make the most sense, really, because what other explanation could there be?

Nothing. Nothing at all.

She made it through the night with the aid of six large coffees but by the end she was shaking so badly she could barely hold a pen. She was positively vibrating. As she hurried to her car she thought she was either going to get home very, very fast, or not at all.

At least I'm going home to a clean apartment, she thought.

Grissom was waiting for her, leaning casually against the hood as if he leaned casually against subordinate's car hoods every day.

"Hey," he said.

She stopped. "Hello." They stared at one another for a full five seconds before he spoke again.

"I just…I was wondering if you had any plans."

"Right now?" She jingled the car keys in her hand nervously. Just gonna go home and climb the walls. Maybe run a marathon. Find the cure to unrequited love. "Uh…no."

He smiled. "Did you want to watch the eclipse?"

She stared at him. Jingle. Jingle.

"With me?" he added, his smile slipping just a notch.

"Eclipse?" she repeated dumbly.

He nodded eagerly. "Lunar eclipse. Starts in…" He checked his watch. "Fifteen minutes."

"Lunar eclipse," she said slowly. Jingle. She nodded, smiled. "All right."

He sighed with relief. "Ok. Ok. Good." He glanced at her twitching fingers. "You…want me to drive?"

* * *

"A lunar eclipse occurs at least two times a year, whenever some portion of the Earth's shadow falls upon the Moon," he said fifteen minutes later. He had pulled into an empty parking lot, dimly lit, and now they stood side by side at the front of the car, heads tilted back at the same angle. Their arms weren't touching, exactly, but Sara could feel the fabric of his sleeve brush against hers from time to time. She just wished she could stop sweating. "A penumbral eclipse occurs when the Moon passes through the Earth's penumbra, which doesn't cause any noticeable darkening of the moon's surface." 

"Uh huh," she said. She wiped her palms on her jeans. And again.

"A special type of penumbral eclipse is a total penumbral eclipse, during which the Moon lies exclusively within the Earth's penumbra. Total penumbral eclipses are rare, and when these occur, that portion of the Moon which is closest to the umbra can appear somewhat darker than the rest of the Moon."

"Okay," she said. She crossed her arms, tried to quell the trembling.

He looked at her. "Are you cold?" he asked solicitously.

She shook her head rather forcefully. He looked up again.

"What we're seeing here is a partial lunar eclipse occurs when only a portion of the Moon enters the umbra."

"Right."

"The longest calculated lunar eclipse occurring between 1000 BCE and 3000 CE took place on May 31, 318. One hour and 47 minutes."

"Wow."

"I don't think this one will last quite that long," he continued tentatively. "But it could take quite awhile."

She glanced over at him. She shrugged, grinned. "That's okay. I have nowhere else I want to go."

* * *

tbc

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

_A/N: After Jorja leaves CSI, I plan on running away with Klee. We will raise goats in Maine and drink pumpkin spice lattes all day long. Just have to let her know about the plan at some point._

* * *

Grissom lay in bed, staring at the ceiling. 

Was there something he was forgetting?

He'd double-checked the locks, and the gas stove. He'd brushed his teeth and flossed, and taken his vitamins.

Shrugging inwardly, he rolled to his side. He needed a dream, that was all. Something to get his mind to drift off. Something easy and calm, like watching a lunar eclipse with Sara–

He opened his eyes. Sara.

Surely she was sleeping now. They'd both worked a double, then spent a couple of hours sky-gazing, _then _gone out to grab some dinner. By the time he'd dropped her back at her apartment, it had been nearly ten o'clock. On a normal night, they'd be getting ready for the next shift; luckily for both of them, they didn't work Sunday nights. So surely she was already fast asleep, drained from all the activity.

He debated calling her. If she were sleeping, the trill of her cell phone would be sure to wake her, and that would defeat the purpose. He ran his thumb over the keys on his cell, thinking.

And that's when he remembered that she kept her text message alert on vibrate. A vibrating phone wouldn't wake anyone, he thought, and so he typed out a quick message:

_You sleeping?_

He sent it, and waited. A few seconds later, a reply came.

_Yup._

Well, that was odd. Unless she was sleep-texting...

_Really?_

After he sent it, he felt like an idiot. Everyone knew that only 0.05 percent of the population actually sleep-texted. She was being sarcastic.

_Nope. You need me to come in? Big case?_

He nearly groaned, reading the display.

_Why aren't you sleeping? _he typed, feeling aggravated.

_Why aren't you? _came the immediate retort.

He frowned at the screen. It was a valid question; why _wasn't _he sleeping? When had someone else's sleeping schedule ever kept him up? He blew out a loud breath. Something wasn't right here.

He decided to change tactics, typing out, _I've been having trouble sleeping since Nick was taken. _

She didn't respond right away, so he got up to use the bathroom. He heard the phone chirp as he was finishing up, and hurried back to read her message:

_Me too._

Aha. Now they were getting somewhere.

Grissom leaned back against his headboard, thinking. Sara was Nick's age... his brush with mortality had probably made her start thinking about her own fragile life. It was natural, really. He just had to get her to admit to it.

_Sometimes it's hard for me to get to sleep_, he typed, _because I think about what it would've been like if I had been the one taken._

Not true, technically, but he'd taken psychology in college, and he knew that the best way to get someone to admit to feeling a certain–

His cell phone beeped in his hand.

_Me too_, she'd written.

He nearly patted himself on the back. There, now her fears were laid out for them both to work on. She'd be sleeping soon enough.

_You're fine, Sara. You're fine, and Nick's fine, too. _He pressed send with his thumb, and idly considered getting a snack. But he'd just brushed his teeth; there was no point in having to repeat the process all over again.

He nearly jumped when his cell phone rang.

"Grissom."

"I know I'm _fine_."

He refused to acknowledge the double entendre. "Then go to sleep!"

"Can't." Sara's voice was rough with fatigue.

"Why not?"

"Just can't."

He couldn't argue there. "You should, I don't know... go on a roller coaster or something."

There was a long pause, before she chuckled softly. "A roller coaster."

"Yeah."

"You think a roller coaster would put me to sleep?"

He fiddled with his sheets. "You need some sort of life-affirming experience. There's nothing like some high-velocity drops and loops to get the blood pumping."

"Yes, there's nothing at all like that," she intoned dryly. "I don't need my life reaffirmed, Grissom. I know I'm alive. I passed freshman bio."

"Then you know how important sleep is. It's when your body's cells–"

"I know," she said irritably. "I know, _god_, I know. I wish I could sleep. Really, I do."

He chewed on his lip. "Look, Sara... if you had been the one taken that night, it would have been pretty frightening for you."

"That's... true."

"But we would have found you, just like we found Nick."

"I bet that's true, too."

"So then put it out of your mind. Just... stop thinking about what it would've been like if you'd been in Nick's place."

She paused. "I'm not."

"Not what?"

"I'm not imagining myself in his place."

Grissom tried not to sigh. "You already admitted before that you've been–"

"Hey, look, we should hang up," she said, an edge to her voice. "Otherwise we'll get on the wrong sleep schedule and our systems will be all off on Monday."

"So you're going to sleep?" he asked suspiciously.

"Yeah," she replied. "Oh yeah, I'm dozing off right now."

He didn't believe her, but the conversation was already bordering on inappropriate. Had he ever called anyone else on his team to encourage them to sleep? "Okay," he said finally. "Well... good night."

"Night."

They hung up, and he lay the cell phone on his nightstand. There. He'd done his part, and now it was up to Sara to sleep.

He pulled the covers up, letting out a breath as he settled his head on the pillow. It was unsettling to know she was picturing herself in that box, trapped under the earth. Just the image of her in there, her long limbs braced against the glass walls, her breathing growing fast and panicked, her eyes wide in terror...

Grissom turned over, his pulse racing at the thought as it entered his mind for the hundredth time. No wonder it was keeping her from sleeping. Strange, though, how she'd taken it back when he'd brought it up during their phone call.

His eyes popped open.

Oh.

Well... shit.

The drive to her apartment took eighteen and a half minutes. One thousand, one hundred ten seconds in which he second- and third- and fourth-guessed himself.

He knocked on her door lightly, and she opened it right away. She was wearing an old blue tank top and sweatpants, and he could hear Law and Order on TV in the distance. Her brow furrowed, and her lip quirked, and he wondered if he'd ever seen anything so lovely. He wondered if there'd ever _been _anything so lovely.

"Grissom? What are you–"

"You didn't misspeak," he blurted out. "I thought you... but you really–"

"What?"

"You're not sleeping," he said, his heart in his throat, "because you're picturing _me_ in the box."

Sara leaned against the doorframe, her eyes bright.

He swallowed hard. "You could've been taken just as easily as I could've."

"I know," she said softly.

"So why is it more frightening to think–"

"It just is." She looked away. "How'd you figure it out?"

Grissom looked at her, his eyes sad. "Why do you think _I_ couldn't sleep?"

She nodded, letting out a breath knowingly. "Oh. Yeah."

"Can I come in?"

She smiled at her feet.


End file.
